Page 38 of Daughter of No Worlds

The urge to thank him lingered at the tip of my tongue.Don’t thank him for doing what he should have done to begin with,a snide, colder part of me hissed.

I don’t know why I believe you, he had said. But I knew. He believed me because hewantedto believe me — wanted to believe in the possibility of something better, however unlikely it was.

And that?

Thatwas something that sank into my soul like water after miles and miles of parched, desperate desert.

“Thank you,” I said, and went inside.

Chapter Twelve

“That’s it? That’s what you’ve got?”

Max sat cross-legged among the tall, rippling grass, watching my silver butterflies rise into the sky.

“‘That’s it?’” I echoed.

“I mean — that’s it?”

It was impossible not to be insulted by this reaction. “Not only these,” I said, gesturing to the butterflies. “There was also fire and—”

“Sparks, honestly. It’s just all very…performative.”

“I know thoughts also,” I offered.

“Right. No need to demonstrate that, I saw that one first hand.” His teeth clamped down on the end of his pen, looking down at the stack of papers he had brought with him. “And when you do that — what do you typically do, exactly?”

“What do Ido?”

“Do you speak, or just listen?”

I stared blankly at him. His eyes flicked up at me from the parchments.

“What I mean is, how closely can you understand what people are thinking? Words, or just feelings? And how much do you control them?”

“Control?” It came out like a gasp. Could Valtaindothat?

Max let out a humorless chuckle. “Ascended, you really are new to Ara, aren’t you? This is why you need to be careful here.”

I shook my head, putting aside that line of questioning for later. “I hear what they feel,” I said. “Not words. Just…” I couldn’t decide how to explain it in Aran, so I placed my hand over my heart. “Big things here.”

He nodded, as if he understood this perfectly.

My thoughts shot to Esmaris, the way his mind felt withering and suffocating beneath my own, the look on his face as he fell to the ground. But I said nothing about that.

“Fine. Good.” Max placed the pile of papers on the ground, staring down at them. I was fairly certain that he did not sleep last night. When I went to bed, he was scribbling frantically at the table, not bothering to so much as look at me as he bid me goodnight. And he was in exactly that same place when I got up again in the morning, except surrounded by substantially more paper and with eyes bracketed by darkness. Still, he was exceptionally energetic when he greeted me and almost immediately whisked me outside to begin.

No objections from me. In fact, this was the most encouraged I’d felt in weeks.

“No one taught me. I learned what I must. To—” The word eluded me. I settled on, “To dance.”

“Dance?”

“Yes.” I snapped my fingers as the word I was searching for came to me. “Perform. In Threll.”

It took a moment for understanding to flood across Max’s features, dimming some of his enthusiasm with a shade I couldn’t quite identify. “I see. It makes sense that you would be self-taught.”

He grunted as he pushed himself to his feet. I did the same, if only because I didn’t like the idea of him staring down at me.

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